GM to invest $200 million at its global powetrain headquarters near Detroit

General Motors will invest $200 million into its global powertrain engineering headquarters in Pontiac, Michigan, and to shift work there from four other locations by 2014.

The carmaker will build a new 138,000 sq.-ft. test wing, which is expected to be completed during the second half of 2014. The move is part of GM’s previously announced plan to invest $1.5 billion in its North American facilities in 2013. The expansion will enable the company to consolidate work being done at four locations remote to the Pontiac campus, helping to reduce development timing for GM’s next-generation advanced propulsion technologies.

When the moves are complete, GM will have added approximately 400 jobs to the Pontiac campus. Under the expansion plan, engineering development work currently being done at leased facilities in Wixom, Michigan; Castleton, Indiana, and Torrance, California, will move to Pontiac. Also, GM R&D’s Propulsion Systems Research lab in Warren, Michigan, will relocate to the Pontiac campus.

“These moves will help our entire Powertrain team work more effectively across the organization to develop the powertrain technologies we need to build the world’s best vehicles for our customers around the world,” said Sam Winegarden, GM vice president of Global Engine Engineering.

In addition, the Performance Build Center, currently located at the Wixom facility, will move to GM’s Chevrolet Corvette assemblyplant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, by the first quarter of 2014.